End of the Beginning
by Tarafina
Summary: One week ago, he thought today was going to be incredible... the beginning of forever. Now he knows it's the end.


**Title**: End of the Beginning  
**Category**: CSI: NY  
**Rating**: T  
**Genre**: Angst/Romance/Tragedy  
**Pairing**: Don Flack/Lindsay Monroe  
**Prompt**: Death  
**Word Count**: 939  
**Summary**: One week ago, he thought today was going to be incredible... the beginning of forever. Now he knows it's the end.

**_End of the Beginning  
_**-1/1-

Times like this, he swore he heard his ma's voice in his head, all soothing and comforting as she stroked his hair and rubbed his back when he was a kid. She wasn't around now to do that and he had a feeling he'd shake her off. He kept his face stoic, stiffened his shoulders and did nothing but stare at the black casket. He didn't acknowledge the others, not even Stella's reassuring hand against his own except to step a fraction to the left, away from her. Danny, Adam and Hawkes were on the other side, each of them trying to stiffen their jaws so they'd stop shaking. Mac stood apart from everyone, watching from a distance, a leader looking over his fallen soldier with nothing but regret. But Don did none of that; he simply waited for it all to end. And when the casket lowered and the people all began walking to their cars, murmuring their useless respects, he turned, left for his empty apartment and the waiting bottle of scotch.

The place was just like how it was that morning; the curtains half closed, hanging funny since he was plastered when he reached for them and flung them shut. The lamp was knocked over on the floor, still in pieces that he never got around to cleaning up. Her clothes were on the bed, where he'd left them, wrinkled from how he'd hugged them, inhaled that scent of hers that was so strong in his mind and yet fading every second.

He sat down on the couch heavily, head falling back, staring at the off-white ceiling blankly. One week ago, things would've been different. He wouldn't be wearing this suit with this drab black tie, but something else entirely, something she would've made a face at before tugging on suggestively and leaving him to go make dinner or something, letting him stew in thoughts of what her eyes had promised and her curved mouth might do when dinner was over and dessert was in progress. But the apartment was empty, the future ended a week ago, and there was no dinner or dessert or anything like that. She wouldn't walk through that door any second now, wouldn't rattle off some weird fact she'd found out at work or tell him about a case she worked that he'd only learned this and that about.

She was gone.

Shot in the line of duty.

Would'a done his dad proud, he guessed. Not that his pops would say it out loud, especially since he never really approved of him and her. His mom did; said she was that sweet, down-to-earth beauty she'd always known her son would find one day. And his sister liked her; thought she was so unlike all of his exes that she was perfect. He thought he saw her at the funeral but he hadn't looked around much. He was sure if he checked the messages his sister would've left him something. But he didn't, wouldn't... He preferred to wallow for now.

He'd been forced into taking leave from work; chief said he needed to work through his grief and aggression because he was sick of having him take it out on perps. And he listened, he tossed his shield down, unclipped his guns and he left, didn't even look back. Because he knew, even if he didn't want to admit it, that when he was out there, chasing some bastard down, all he could think about was how someone like this guy, somebody with a gun and a nervous finger had turned it on her and left her there in the middle of the street to bleed out. And he went blind then, took down whoever it was he was he was chasing and he didn't hold back, smashed their faces into the pavement, yanked their arms behind their back, had the overwhelming urge to just put them out of their misery. But he didn't, wouldn't, and now he'd never have the chance.

So he sat in the living room, on the couch they used to cuddle on while he watched sports and she read a book. He thought about how it felt to have her laying next to him, the soft scent of her hair in every breath, the touch of her skin... He remembered her smile, those mischievous brown eyes, and all that knowledge just waiting to escape her and fill him. And he thought about how the ring was sitting in the dresser and the reservations had been for tonight. How he was going to propose but instead wound up at her funeral.

How's that for fuckin' irony?

Funny thing was, through her whole funeral all he could think was that her headstone would forever say Lindsay Monroe when all he wanted, all he'd thought about for months before she died was that she was meant to be Lindsay Flack. That when he asked, he knew she'd say yes. That the only person he ever saw himself really settling down with was his brainy CSI from Bozeman, Montana. And now it was all over, before it ever really began. And what the hell was he gonna do with his life now? Finally found something to hold onto in a life full of death and crime and she ends up getting taken out.

He reached for the half-empty bottle of scotch and decided that he didn't wanna think about the future, didn't wanna accept the present, and for right now he'd live in the past, grieve and see where it brought him. He had a feeling it was nowhere good.


End file.
